Okay.  I decided to take a different approach to discussing the VORTEX2 best cases.  I will discuss them by day.  Read on to find out why!

After VORTEX2 ended, I attended the American  Meteorological Society Severe Local Storms Conference in Denver, CO October 11-15, 2010.  I listened to every VORTEX2 presentation, and also attended the wrap-up meeting with the teams after the conference ended.

Like any good meteorologist/pseudoscientist, I made a spreadsheet of all the best data collection days mentioned in each presentation.  I listed each instrument and what was good about the data collection day.  I then marked the cases that seemed to have the most complete across-the-board data overall, and tried to summarize the day and the data collection.  IF a day is NOT mentioned, it does not mean data was not collected, or it was not a good day.  For example, there were some days there were great strategies employed to launch balloons in a special array, but not all equipment was in place to make it a banner day.   But, GREAT data was collected that everyone will use.  The Unmanned Aerial System was in an engineering proof-of-concept mission, but the data collection they were able to do was icing on the VORTEX2 cake.  See what I mean I hope?

Also,  it means when you have 90 days in the field, one has to narrow their focus a bit.  Since I am not attached to a team, but the mission, I have done my best to provide a good overview for all teams.  This discussion is not intended to be the official voice or summary of anyone.  Just me.

MY list includes eight days of great data.  I will post these days in chronological order on Monday’s for the next eight weeks.  Please email nssl.outreach@noaa.gov if you have any further questions.

Daily reports are available on the data catalog at http://catalog.eol.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/vortex2 if you desire more information.